On the third day of combat between Bashar Al-Assad supporters and Syria’s security forces, Ahmad Sharaa defended collective efforts so that everyone is able to ‘live together in the country’
The interim president of Ahmad Sharaa, made a request for “national unity” and “Civil Paz” on the third day of confrontation between the country’s security forces and the supporters of the deposed president Bashar Al-Assad. The internal conflict already leaves more than a thousand dead, most of Alauítas, an ethnic-religious minority supporter of Assad. “What is happening in the country are challenges that were predictable,” Sharaa said during a speech in a Damascus mosque. The current president led the Islamic coalition that overthrew .
The alauites are a Shiite minority who supported dictator Bashar al-Assad, deposed in December. The group that took power is Sunni and is accused of promoting a systematic ethnic cleansing. Sharaa continued to say that “we have to preserve national unity, civil peace as much as possible and, God willing, we will be able to live together in this country.” Syrian security sources reported that at least 200 of its members were killed in the clashes with former Loyal Military to Assad, after coordinated and ambushed attacks against their forces last Thursday.
The attacks climbed to revenge acts when thousands of armed supporters of the new Syrian rulers from all over the country went to the coastal areas to support the forces of the new administration. Authorities have attributed summary executions of dozens of young people and lethal attacks on residences in villages and cities inhabited by the former ruler minority of Syria to undisciplined armed minias, which have been helping the security forces and there is a lot to blame Assad supporters for past crimes.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor based on the on Saturday said that the two days of fighting in the coastal region of the Mediterranean represented some of the most serious episodes of violence in years in the 13 -year civil conflict. The clashes continued at night in several cities, where armed groups fired on security forces and ambushed vehicles on highways that lead to major cities in the coastal region, a Syrian security source told Reuters on Sunday.
Mass murder
Human rights organizations denounced the murder of hundreds of Alauite minority civilians for the security forces of the new Syrian government. The Federation of Alauitas in Europe says there is “systematic ethnic cleansing” in the region. According to the Syrian government, the army was doing an operation in the Latakia region when it would have been attacked.
Also according to the Syrian government, the offensive would be a uprising of forces linked to the old dictator Bashar Assad regime. The Alauites deny this version of the government, saying they have been the subject of persecution of the radical Sunnis that took power last December and are seen by these radicals as “heretics.”
Syria is mostly Sunni, but has been ruled for five decades by the Assad family, which follows the Alauíta line. Bashar al-Assad has been in power for 24 years until he was deposed by members of the HTS, one of the groups fighting in the country’s long civil war.
On Friday, former HTS commander and today Syria president Ahmed Al-Sharaa said: “Let’s continue to pursue the remnants of the regime that want to continue oppression and tyranny, those who have committed crimes against the population and soften security and peace. They will be submitted to trial ”
Who rules Syria?
The Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham group, whose name means organization for the release of the uprising, was the main rebel militia ahead of the offensive that quickly knocked off former President Bashar Assad. Now the organization is leading a transition process to a new Syrian government. Rebel leader Mohammed al-Bashir, affiliated with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, was appointed interim prime minister until March 1st he previously served as head of the Government of Idlib, a northwestern rebel-controlled territory.
Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham’s history in Idlib can offer some clues about how the group should control a much larger territory. The organization has maintained a robust internal security force to confront other military factions and internal critics, causing regular protests against its authoritarian methods and the harsh conditions in their arrests. It is an open issue if these rebels will be able to expand for most Syria what they have conquered in Idlib, a poor agrarian region, with a relatively small population.
The alliance has said it will grant amnesty to government officials and lower level soldiers, but has promised to hunt and punish high employees of the previous regime involved in torture and other abuse. “We will not fail to hold criminals, killers, security officials, and military personnel involved in the torture of the Syrian people,” said Al-Shara, the leader of the rebel movement, who was previously known by the name of war Abu Mohammad al-Jolani.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham was affiliated with Al-Qaeda and broke with the international terrorist network years ago, dominating Idlib, the last stronghold of Syria opposition during the 13-year civil war.
What are the internal factions in Syria?
In addition to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, there are several important armed groups in Syria and many smaller organizations.
Democratic forces of Syria
Forces of the Kurdish Syrian ethnic minority, which makes up about 10% of the population, became the leading local partner of the US in the fight against the Islamic State in the country, under the flag of Syria’s democratic forces. After the Islamic State was widely defeated in 2019, forces led by the Kurds consolidated control over cities in the Northeast, expanding an autonomous region that had already erected. But the Kurdish combatants still had to deal with a longtime enemy, Turkey, which considers them linked to Kurdish separatist insurgents present in Türkiye
Syrian National Army
This umbrella group, which includes dozens of organizations with different convictions, receives financing and weapons from Turkey, which has long focused on expanding a protective zone along its border with Syria to protect itself from activities of Kurdish militants. Turkey wants to create an area where it is able to reset some of the 3 million refugees who have fled the Syrian war and live within its borders. But Ankara had difficulty harmonizing the disorganized groups that make up the Syrian National Army.
The group is largely composed of Syrian civil war slag, including many US -considered fighters. Some received training from Americans at the beginning of the war, but most were discarded for being an extremist or committing crimes. Most have no clear ideology, appealing to Türkiye in search of a salary of about $ 100 per month when the group was formed.
And the Drus militia
The Syrian Druse Minority is concentrated in Sweida in the southwest of the country. This week, the Drudos combatants joined the effort to overthrow the Assad regime, launching an offensive in the Sudoeste and clashing with government forces, according to press reports. Drudent combatants are part of a newly graduated Syrian rebel group that includes fighters from other origins, working under the name of “Southern Operations Room”.
Druses are a religious group that practices a branch of Islam developed in the 11th century and brings together elements of Christianity, Hinduism, Gnosticism, and other philosophies. There are more than 1 million druses in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Lebanon, also present in Jordan and Israel.
Islamic state
The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, better known as ISIS, took vast extensions of territory in Syria and Iraq in 2014, establishing a brutal caliphate before being defeated by a US -led coalition. Now almost all its members are hidden.
Lately, in the midst of greater instability in the region, there have been signs of the resurgence of the group in Syria. The Pentagon warned in July that Islamic State attacks in Syria and Iraq were on their way to double compared to the previous year. The group repeatedly tried to release its members from the arrests and maintained a hidden governance in parts of Northeast of Syria, the US said.
On Tuesday, the Islamic State forces killed 54 people in the Homs region in the center of Syria, which were part of the Syrian government army and fled during the collapse of the Assad regime, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
*With information from Estadão Content
Posted by Victor Oliveira
